I've finally finished watching Full House (浪漫满屋). It took an entire day. Well, almost. I started watching sometime around midnight last night, and finished watching it around 8pm today. I've got really good stamina for Korean drama marathons. Haha.
Well, the verdict of Full House: What's so good about it? For all that raving, I expected better.
This story is built on the same old success formula of all Korean dramas. But it doesn't really have anything that makes it stand out from the rest of the lot.
The male and female leads are always flanked by the third party (always a girl) and another man who faithfully loves the female lead , take care of her, and wait for her to love him back.
A short summary: Han Ji Eun is a cheerful, naive and trusting girl, who is cheated by her long-time friends Dong Gu and Hi Jin - they give her a one-way ticket to Shanghai saying that it is a lucky draw prize, and while she is away, they sell her house. On the trip, she meets Young Jae, a famous actor, and Min Hyuk, the Director of a Publishing company. She comes back to Korea to find her friends missing, and her house sold to Young Jae. In a bid to settle the housing problem, Young Jae allows Ji Eun to stay at the house as his housekeeper. Young Jae is in love with his childhood friend, Hae Won, and when she rejects him, he retaliates by marrying Ji Eun, which also helps to quelch all other rumours of his affairs, which he is sick of.
Their contractual marriage is to last 6 months, and at the end, she will get the house back as alimony. Both are fine with this arrangement, but obviously cannot stand living together. Min Hyuk, the object of affections of Hae Won, and also a good friend of Young Jae, falls in love with Ji Eun, and attempts to win her over from Young Jae (who I must say, is a pighead that doesn't know how to appreciate Ji Eun). He continues seeing Hae Won, which hurts Ji Eun terribly. After a long time, he finally realises that he is in love with Ji Eun, not Hae Won, and Hae Won releases him to return to Ji Eun. But it's too late! Eventually, circumstances force them to divorce (Young Jae claims it's because he loves her too much to hurt her any further) and both go their separate ways - Young Jae hides in a monastery and meditates (the divorce has taken a toll on his career), while Ji Eun remains at the house, writing her movie scripts. He comes back when he is told that she is very ill, and he tries clumsily to express his love for her. But he's late - Min Hyuk has already proposed. Well, in the end, the two decide that they love each other and want to be together.
So yeah. That's the whole story. Okay lah, I know my summary isn't very short. Hehe!
It's too similar to the last Korean drama that I watched: Endless Love (aka Autumn Fairytale). The leads also remind me of Meteor Garden's Dao Ming Si (Jerry Yan) and Shan Cai (Barbie Hsu), who are at loggerheads with each other.
This story progresses extremely slowly, and the leads only realise their love for each other around the 10th episode, maybe? That leaves only 6 episodes to develop their love story. For the bulk of the movie, they just yell at each other.
Characters. I didn't like the male lead, Yi Young Jae (played by Rain Jeong Ji Hoon). Didn't like the looks, didn't like the voice. Okay, I accept that the voice was dubbed in Mandarin, but it was damn irritating. Why so high pitched? And I didn't like his MCP character, his pigheadedness and clumsy expressions of his feelings, and how selfish he was to have wanted both girls by his side. One may argue that he loves the female lead Han Ji Eun (played by Song Hye Kyo), while he feels a responsibility to protect Hae Won (played by Han Eun Jeong), but I still feel he is greedy. In this way, he hurt both girls.
I liked
Song Hye Kyo in
Endless Love. Her character was patient, gentle, and long-suffering. In
Full House, she took on a dramatic 180 degrees change in character, and managed to portray very well, a young lady who was cheerful and abit goofy, while being patient (well, in a way) and caring at the same time. But she was also abit too loud and crass here.
However, I have to admit that these two look quite compatible (despite the fact that I don't think that
Rain is good-looking), and they have great on-screen chemistry.
Rain is abit awkward at times, and although his role in the drama is an actor, he shows inability to lie or hide things well. He's just so unnatural and obvious in those scenes.
I also dislike
Kim Seong Su's character, Yoo Min Hyuk, cos I think he is ugly. Also, his I-am-superior air puts me off. I think he and Hae Won are a match made in heaven.
She is equally irritating, but you can't hate her, unlike the third party character Chae'rin in
Winter Sonata. Hae Won is not really evil - just self-centred. She's quite pretty too, but looks old in comparison to
Song Hye Kyo.
Somehow, I still prefer those kinda dramatic stories where there's alot of crying, suffering and sadness. In
Full House, you don't get any of those. The few touching moments in between the yelling were not enough to save the show.
All in all, I don't think this show is that good. In fact, I didn't like it. It doesn't have the tear-inducing factor that should be present in all Korean dramas. And the male leads aren't handsome!
: (
And what the hell is wrong with their wardrobe?! So damn ugly. Urghk. Especially the stuff that
Rain had to wear - the ugly jackets, shirts, ties, scarfts, pants.
*shudder* And they made Ji Eun wear flirty mini skirts to clean the house, run in heels, and cycle in heels too. How retarded. Another thing that irritated me was that almost every outfit that
Han Eun Jeong wore had to show her colourful bra-straps. That is so passe! Not to mention disgusting. Oh, and I hated the names of the characters too. The Chinese translations, at least. Zhi'en, Yingzai, Huiyuan, Minhe. Yuck. Super ugly names.
Junxi, Enxi, Xin'ai and Taixi... sounds so much better. I still prefer
Endless Love. Still my fave.
More Full House pictures.
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